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Luna Rossa Challenge has introduced their team in Palermo, Italy and launched their website today. The team looks strong and will be interesting to watch in their debut in Naples. You can read more about the new team on the Luna Rossa site.

But what struck me when looking at the new pages was one particularly interesting post – a re-published book forward written by the late Sir Peter Blake, a legend of the America’s Cup, for a book about one of the early Luna Rossa challenges in New Zealand.

The text is not titled, but it’s essentially a meditation on the America’s Cup. What is it about this trophy, this competition, that compels dreamers, visionaries, sportsmen, and titans of business, to devote their time, energy and money to capturing it? Why do they do it?

Blake gives his thoughts:

“The prestige for the winner has more value than any other sporting achievement. It’s winning the invincible and doing the impossible that attracts sailors, dreamers and millionaires, but the victory is not easy, and most of the time it doesn’t ever happen. The only way to win is to continuously participate, continuously return time and time again with the conviction that you can do it.

“Hesitating after the first attempt is not part of the rules of the game.

“You need extraordinary people with ferocious motivation, lots of experience and attention to details and unconditional dedication.”

Unconditional dedication. As the America’s Cup teams prepare to resume racing in Naples, it’s worth remembering this is what the game is about. Participating in the Cup is possible without this single-mindedness. But winning sure isn’t. Never in the 160-plus year history of the competition has a team won that didn’t have this unconditional dedication to the cause.

This crop of America’s Cup teams is no different. Those building AC72s have embarked an a journey that demands excellence in all aspects of the campaign if the ultimate success is to be achieved.

Blake concludes his note with a list of what I think he would consider to be his truths about the Cup:

The America’s Cup is what it is because it is so difficult to win.

It is not a game for armchair admirals.

It is not a game for the person who is not prepared to come back.

It is not a game for the faint hearted.

It is a game for those who are not scared of pitting themselves against the best that the world has to offer.

It’s a game where winning is almost impossible, almost, but not impossible.

“And this is why it is worth fighting for,” he concludes. “It is the difficulty that gives any challenge some sense.

“This is the essence of life itself.”

The results of this latest America’s Cup won’t be known until September 2013, but we’ll begin to get an indication of who is edging ahead in this pursuit of excellence before that – perhaps as early as next week during the America’s Cup World Series – Naples.